It probably would be wrong to call the latest Lamb’s Players Theatre musical “Bali Huh?”

And not just because the hardworking artists at Lamb’s have done about all they can to make a go of “Joe vs. the Volcano … the musical!” Or because the world-premiere production does have elements that shine — splashy costumes, smartly played songs, eye-catching projections and a stirring soundscape. (Or because the song “Bali Ha’i” from “South Pacific” ought to be just left alone already.)

But also because, for a show that has that magma-tastic mountain right in its title, it spends surprisingly little time on the tropical island where the volcano is situated.

That’s part of a broader issue with this game adaptation of the 1990 movie, which flopped at the box office but has since cultivated a cult following: The show, as if in homage to the volcano, can feel as if it’s developing in geologic time.

Another issue: This is a musical that doesn’t quite feel like a musical (no matter how much that exclamation point in the title might insist otherwise).

A fair number of the songs in Scott Hafso and Darcy Phillips’ score are wordless or chanted mood pieces or tunes that feel more like fragments than fully fleshed-out selections. They also tend toward the lugubrious. (Quote from my notebook: “Shouldn’t this be more fun?”)

It seems telling that one of the most successful numbers (“The Cowboy Song”) is a solo lark on ukulele by Sean Cox, the accomplished San Diego actor who plays Joe.

As it happens, that tune was composed by John Patrick Shanley, the Pulitzer-winning playwright (“Doubt”) and Oscar-winning screenwriter (“Moonstruck”) who scripted and directed the original movie.

The film, which Lamb’s producing artistic director Robert Smyth (who directed the musical) classifies as a fable, lays out the saga of sad-sack Joe, an office shlub and hypochondriac who learns he is terminally ill with a “brain cloud.”

A mystery mogul named Graynamore (Jim Chovick) then shows up with an odd proposition for Joe: Live the high life (all expenses paid) in his final days, then agree to leap into a volcano on the far-off island of Waponi Woo as his final act.

The sacrifice will appease the volcano gods — or at least the native islanders, who then will allow Graynamore’s people to continue extracting a rare and precious mineral from their land.

The adaptation by Hafso and Phillips, which follows that story arc closely, also shares some of the qualities that apparently mystified millions about the movie — most notably, how to weigh the absurdist comic set pieces against the sober meditations on life and death.

That gives the actors a lot to handle, which they mostly do with admirable pluck. Cox brings an appealingly shambling, loose-limbed feel to Joe, a part played in the movie by Tom Hanks. Eileen Bowman, meanwhile, takes on the Meg Ryan roles— all three of them — and proves a saving grace for the show with her fetching voice and talent for comedy.